What would the path be had you been able to contain the light?

[Ralphe2449]

In shadowbringers Emet very clearly states that he has high expectations of you, from the moment he witnessed your "soul" at the start of Shb it was clear he had an interest in you which we know why now.


The question is, had you been able to contain the light as he had hoped, what would the "path of lesser tragedy" be, knowing the current lore how would you feasibly bring back the original existence? You would have Emet clearly assist you but how would your ability to handle all that light play into the equation?

Assuming he knows that amount of light CAN be contained by an unsundered he could likely be thinking of the possibility that you can recreate the ancient world not by destroying shards but by simply combining souls of the sundered till you get a being of equal power which obviously cant be that simple otherwise they wouldnt bother raising sundered ascians when you could combine them into the original entity.

The source has already been 7 times rejoined and you technically are able to handle the light once you are 8/13 a lot better, still though, what path could there have been that through your ability to handle the light? It would be the common ground Emet mentioned at the start, question is how would that work.


People who will go "Muh genocide, ascians ebul, always lie" need not participate in this xd

[Enkidoh]

I'm pretty certain that was never actually on the table - G'raha knew from the beginning that the WoL would not be able to contain all the Lightwardens' essences no matter what the WoL did, and it's highly likely that's what Emet thought too. Emet's whole "high expectations" comment wasn't to do with that, but was exactly how well the WoL measured up compared to their 'pre-Sundering counterpart' (aka Azem) - this is why he mocks the WoL at the end of Amaurot as being "below expectations", because you didn't just effortlessly slay every monster with one hit like Azem would have done, the WoL was found wanting.

So whether the WoL hypothetically would have been able to contain the corrupted Light and what other path they may have taken accordingly was a moot point. The WoL simply would never have been able to period.

[Cleretic]

I told you this when you cross-posted this on Reddit: your question is, on its face, non-functional. We have to alter it just to be able to get a functional answer, but the answer will be pretty damn close to what happened. Cross-posting my answer there, because it remains valid here:

Emet wasn't looking for a test we could pass, he was setting us up to fail. An Ancient couldn't have handled that--which we know because the Thirteenth is still how it is, if that strategy worked then they would've used a version of it. He probably knew we couldn't keep it contained, so setting that as the only condition for success is already setting up for a non-answer, because it wouldn't have been possible by any metric. Which even WE know, because it wasn't G'raha's plan either! Remember how he had a plan that would've succeeded if he didn't get shot?

If we found a way to succeed, perhaps by keeping it contained, letting G'raha actually do his plan of basically detonating all that aether in the void, by blasting a source of darkness with enough light to get rid of it all (which, what do you know, we actually did), or finding some wild-ass, back-of-the-library strategy that nobody thought of, then... honestly, I'd expect that Emet would've still found a way to declare it a failure and try to kill us anyway. We know from Endwalker that even when he's given the truth he still stubbornly clings to Plan Zodiark, why would this be any different?

[Lyth]

If you had to 'prove your worth' in order to simply be someone's friend, were they ever really your friend at all?

I wonder if the original Azem would be the sort of person to simply bend themselves to another's will like that. And if not, then why, as inheritors of Azem's spirit, would we?

[Lurina]

Yoshi-P went into this topic himself in a Famitsu Interview.

Interviewer: Thinking back, there was a moment where Emet-Selch struck a deal with the Warrior of Light with one condition being “able to contain the amassed Light within themselves”. In the end Emet-Selch concluded that the Warrior of Light failed this task, but by that point the Warrior of Light and Ardbert’s soul had merged, so it technically means the Warrior of Light actually met Emet-Selch’s requirements. I’d like to know if you can shed some light on this part?

Yoshi-P: I probably interpreted that part slightly differently to how you did. Frst, Emet-Selch thought that if the Warrior of Light is truly Unsundered, then it’s a given for them to easily control even that large quantity of light. To Emet-Selch, there’s an enormous gap between what he considers “true human beings” (the Ancients) and what he calls “pitiful, malformed creatures” (humanity as we know it). The sentiment that “absorbing just 5 or 6 of the Lightwarden’s contained light is enough to make you turn into a Sin Eater?” is the primary factor to his disappointment in the Warrior of Light.

Interviewer: I see.

Yoshi-P: While this is really nuanced and difficult to convey, but from the perspective of Emet-Selch who possesses the knowledge of unsundered souls, he felt it should be easy to contain the light emitted by the Lightwardens regardless of how fragmented the soul is. By the end, Emet-Selch thought, “You are not Azem, nor someone similar to Azem… in the end, you were nothing but a failure”.

Interviewer: So he judged the Warrior of Light to be a failure.

Yoshi-P: That was the conclusion he came to. If the Warrior of Light, even with a fragmented soul, could contain all of that light, Emet-Selch felt he might have to re-examine his views on humanity itself… This is precisely why he had to experience the journey himself; he really thought that by joining hands with humans, he could have found a different solution to the methods that he and the Ascians had taken up until that point. Needless to say, Emet-Selch has a very detailed understanding of the Warrior of Light’s soul, and it is very similar to that particular person he held in high regard… “but even so!” The point that made him truly disappointed from the bottom of his heart was because of that aforementioned incident. Those were Emet-Selch’s true feelings.

So it seems like he was being sincere, but didn't have a specific plan if you actually did succeed. He also talks about the idea that Emet might've intentionally created a situation where the WoL would be cured if they were able to wield the light to defeat him, making the final battle kinda a "test" it's own right.

[Lyth]

We did ultimately pass Emet's test, though, as much as he refused to believe in it. He still has the abdominal scar to show for it.

[Cleretic]

Yoshi-P went into this topic himself in a Famitsu Interview.



So it seems like he was being sincere, but didn't have a specific plan if you actually did succeed. He also talks about the idea that Emet might've intentionally created a situation where the WoL would be cured if they were able to wield the light to defeat him, making the final battle kinda a "test" it's own right.

Which confirms that we definitely wouldn't have ever contained it anyway, because he was testing for something that even we fairly quickly knew was false, our potential Unsundered-ness.

If Emet had ever met Ardbert we wouldn't have had this problem. ...we'd have had an entirely different, probably much worse one.

[Tehmon]

I mean, we were already being affected by the light before even getting to Vauthry, so, he'd probably just say he is still disappointed because our soul is a mess and proceed with his plans. He'd probably capture us and force-feed us light or something.

[Lurina]

Which confirms that we definitely wouldn't have ever contained it anyway, because he was testing for something that even we fairly quickly knew was false, our potential Unsundered-ness.

If Emet had ever met Ardbert we wouldn't have had this problem. ...we'd have had an entirely different, probably much worse one.

It's worth nothing that there's a slight terminology issue here. The Japanese text doesn't really have a direct equivalent to the terms "Sundered" and "Unsundered" that are used a lot in the English text. The term that Yoshi-P employs for Unsundered here (and which is also used by Emet in the story) is "真の人/Shin no hito" which literally means "true person", while there isn't really a general term for the Sundered at all. The Sundered Ascians specifically are called the 転生組/Tenseigumi or "Reincarnated Group", while other Sundered are either just referred to as humans or (usually by Emet) 失敗者/Shippaisha, meaning "failure".

In other words, Yoshi-P wasn't per-se saying that Emet was expecting or hoping the WoL to literally be or become Unsundered in a technical sense, just that they would prove somehow that they are equally 'real' people.

[Ralphe2449]

Yoshi-P went into this topic himself in a Famitsu Interview.



So it seems like he was being sincere, but didn't have a specific plan if you actually did succeed. He also talks about the idea that Emet might've intentionally created a situation where the WoL would be cured if they were able to wield the light to defeat him, making the final battle kinda a "test" it's own right.

That was very helpful.

As expected Emet Selch was quite genuine in his belief in us which lead to my question.

Since he said a ‘path of lesser tragedy’ could be found it suggests that he must have at least an inkling of an idea, had the WoL been able to contain the light it would be proof that you can reach near equal status to an unsundered without being fully rejoined. (though we already had that seen when zenos in a weaker body and artificial echo was able to make elidibus run away)

Had this been possible, how could it be used to achieve the ascian goals I wonder, let’s say you can contain the light and prove you are his near equal, that doesnt really reveal a new path, it just shows you are extremely capable and Emet clearly had in mind that if the WoL can contain the light, a common ground can be reached, but what could that common ground be?